"Atheists tend to be selfish bastards, as we see clearly in many of the posts here. Hence the tendency of encountering athiests as single non-parents.

You're missing the point regarding the lack of "controls". If you eliminated the married folks from consideration (or separated them), there would be a stronger bias for suicide among atheists who have no family.

This 2004 study isn't dated at all, and remains quite interesting since there have been no other studies.

How laughable it is to read the bravado of the atheists here. Their overconfidence will not serve them well in the end.

It's quite simple: The typical atheist could care less about God or their fellow man. The rejection of God leaves him with nothing in the moment of severe mental crisis. Having nothing, he wants to become nothing. Persistent doubt now culminates in despairing agony. But there is no God to pull him out. Ignorance was bliss, but now it becomes excruciating pain. Once strong in his freedom, he now finds himself pitifully weak.

In denying God, he denies spirituality. Since he denies his soul and the possibility of spiritual assistance from God, it is quite simply unavailable to him as he contemplates suicide.

There is nothing to lean on, since the atheist denies the Power that established him and sustains him. He's on his own. But the darkness is black. Black. It is cold and terribly lonely.

This is the sickness unto death. But death is not the end. There shall be a reckoning."

"The typical atheist could care less about God or their fellow man [...] In denying God, he denies spirituality"

Utterly wrong. You use God/religion to fill your need of spirituality. We use the care of our fellow man and love of humanity to fill our need of spirituality.

Spirituality takes on many forms, religion being just one of them. We are every bit as spiritual when we appreciate the beauty of nature, the love a parent shows to his or her child, and the wonders of science as you are when you ponder the mysteries of your religion.

Oh dear! What can the matter be? I've slid into a pit of despair. I have become enfeebled by the very thought of my impending severe mental crisis. These is desperate times. There is only one thing to do. I must concentrate. mnnghh! uuhaaghuuh! Done it! Whew! that took a bit of doing. But I'm safe now. My vitality and my spirituality have been restored. My depression has gone. I feel positively blissful. My soul is bubbling. My farts smell of invisible rainbows. Oops! Hang on a tick. Take it down a notch. nngh! There. That's better. Sorry. My euphoria was getting the better of me.

So, what have I done? How have I solved my overconfidence and loss of soul? Easy. I concentrated hard. Very, very hard. And. POOF! All of a sudden I now believe in an invisible sky fairy. I believe in persecuting everybody who doesn't believe as I do. And I believe in constantly whining about being persecuted by everyone who doesn't believe as I do. I am now quite fond of telling lies and willfully engaging in deceit. I've become a violent, superstitious and barbaric misogynist, a bigot, and a racist. I now believe any old bollocks that some pedophile jerk in a dog collar tells me. Yes sir. Everything is now sweetness and light. Saved at last. Hallelujah!

PS. I ain't half looking forward to peering down from my blissful station in heaven at all the naughty people in hell enduring their eternal torture.

Not having children might well be a very selfless decision. If you feel that you would not be a good parent, then you should refrain from forcing yourself as parent onto a child.

If you break up families there would be more suicides among people who had no family? What are you saying?

And again with the "could care less" when you mean "couldn't care less". Stupid git!
Not caring about God does not mean you don't care about your fellow man.
In a moment of severe mental crisis I go to my family, or my friends. They are really there for me, and can give me a hug or advice, or just be there.
I do not have nothing, I have many people in my life.

An atheist does not doubt, an agnostic doubts.

That is what YOU would feel if you realized there is no God. That is not what people who are secure and happy in their atheism feel.

But fundamentalist marriages are far more likely tho end in divorce than those between atheists. And look at that stalwart champion of family values, Newt Gingrich, divorcing his wife while she was in the hospital dying of cancer so he could marry his mistress. Clearly the will of God!

There is nothing to lean on, since the atheist denies the Power that established him and sustains him. He's on his own. But the darkness is black. Black. It is cold and terribly lonely.

I've never felt this "power". It's never been seen, nor measured in any way, shape, or form outside of the minds of theists. It sustains nothing, certainly not me. I have to sustain myself in my own way.
Your outside "power" does not exist. You argument has no foundation.

Is it weird, that the thing that annoys me the most about this post, is that he says, that atheists COULD care less about god or their fellow man. The phrase is couldn't care less, don't make me go David Mitchell on your arse.

Yeah, I can't tell you the number of times I've committed suicide just to fulfill my selfish desire to...umm...kill myself. And you're right, it's impossible for an atheist to care about other people if he doesn't believe that a magic man is watching him masturbate; it's practically a scientific law. All that charity work I (and other atheists) have done is just a ruse so that we can bring people to Satan who, by the way, we all work for. My turn ons include kicking puppies, lighting babies on fire, and long walks on the beach.

Gah, people tying suicide to selfishness disgust me! When someone feels miserable enough to want to die (or risk injury to "earn" help) it is serious business, and you can't guilt somebody out of depression!
John, you are making christians sound like terrible, sadistic and irresponsible people. You should wonder about your god indeed, I'm not sure if he's happy to be associated with your brand of evil.

I love how these fundies presume to psychoanalyze me without even knowing me.

When I finally realized that religion was bunk and there's most likely no god, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders, I finally felt unshackled, I started caring more about my fellow man and less about who he's having sex with. I could finally understand the universe and life in general without it having to fit a rigid religious view. I could finally stop inventing reasons why prayer didn't work or how the bible was all true. I could stop feeling guilty about not going to church or not wanting to go to church every week.

Well obviously, I don't care about your god, cause I don't believe he exists. But I do in fact care about other people. I have a very close knit family, the majority of which is not religious, I have a social conscience

And I don't plan on having biological children, because the population is too big already, instead I shall adopt children from a poor nation, and give them a better chance at living a happy and fulfilling life.

As I have said a million times, if I want to know how an atheist thinks or what an atheist feels, I'll ask a Christian Fundtard. I wish atheists as a group could sue these bastards for libel. They natter on, preaching to their choir with utter bullshit punditry. Classic ad hom, strawman, and slippery slope fallacies that the ignorant will lap up like a kitten with a saucer of cream.

Yes, I deny spirituality. If it were real, why would you have to sell it so hard and so incessantly? We are bombarded with this mythos without one shred of the proof that we are conveniently not supposed to ask for.